Chennai: On June 17, 1911, Collector Robert William de'Escort Ashe and his wife Mary left Tirunelveli Junction by the morning train to board Boat Mail at Maniyachi Junction. The two were on their way to see their children who were studying in Kodaikanal.
While the collector's guard had gone to fetch water, a young man entered the same compartment and shot Ashe. The fugitive youth then ran into a toilet on the platform and shot himself. The man, 25, was Vanchinathan, a freedom fighter whose name hardly finds mention in the country's struggle for independence.
Born in 1886 in Sengottai (also known as Shencottah) near Tirunelveli (then in Travancore state), Vanchinathan did his schooling from the native town and his higher education from Thiruvananthapuram. Subsequently, he worked in the forest department.
It was a time when people were actively participating in the brewing struggle against the British as people led protests and agitations to free themselves from the clutches of the regime.
The quest for independence inspired Vanchinathan too, who chose the path of armed struggle and decided to undergo weapons training at Bharat Mata organisation, a branch of Savarkar's Abhinav Bharat operating in the then French colony.
Vanchinathan and the like-minded freedom fighters from Tirunelveli had been actively involved in the protests against the British.
Enraged by this, Collector Ashe was serious about suppressing the uprising. Ashe was also keen to destroy the Swadeshi Steam Navigation Company, the first such company in India owned by V.O Chidambaram and Subramaniya Siva. This enraged Vanchinathan and he vowed to kill the British officer.
Though Vanchinathan fought tooth and nail against the British, he was not as popular as others.
Remembering Vanchinathan, a young martyr of India's freedom struggle A letter seized from his pocket after his suicide read: "British enemies are seizing our nation and trampling on the indestructible Sanatana Dharma. So, we must drive out the British and establish Dharma and freedom. We are also recruiting 3000 Madrassis to kill any British officers who land in our region. So, I killed Ashe."
Commenting on it, historian A.R Venkatachalapathy said that the assassination of Ashe had a disastrous fallout on the freedom movement.
Pro-independence activities, he said, had nearly died down in the region due to fear of repression. According to him, prominent persons including those from the business community were present at Ashe's funeral.
According to P Ramanathan, president of the Vanchi Makkal Iyakkam, "the then Tirunelveli Collector Ashe was firm in suppressing the protests and agitations against British rule. He acted firmly to destroy the first Indian shipping company. So it was decided to shoot him dead."
Freedom fighters, Ramanathan added, were of the opinion that India would be freed if Indians shot British rulers dead.
On June 18, 2011, a hundred years after Vanchinathan killed Ashe, Robert W.D.E Ashe, the grandson of the slain British officer, emailed a message of reconciliation to Harihara Subramanian, son of Vanchinathan's younger brother.
In it, he called Vanchinathan an "idealist political campaigner whose zeal for the freedom of his country sent Robert (Ashe) to his early grave."
Former Lok Sabha MP Kumari Ananthan rallied for renaming the Maniyachi railway junction as 'Vanchi Maniyachi' to commemorate Vanchinathan's sacrifice, which eventually fructified. The Tamil Nadu government had also erected a statue of Vanchinathan in Sengottai and constructed a memorial in his name.
